The West Virginia Commission on the Arts of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History has awarded $28,000 to a group of Mountain State artists who were selected as recipients of the 2007 West Virginia Artist Fellowship Grant Awards.
Eight Artist Fellowship Awards of $3,500 will be made to artists from Cabell, Jefferson, Kanawha, Mercer, Monongalia, Randolph and Wood counties. Works were chosen in the categories visual arts/crafts/photography, literary arts/fiction/playwriting, and performing arts/choreography/music composition.
Fellowship recipients are Aleta Cortes of Pipestem; Jessica Fox of Huntington; Benita Keller of Shepherdstown; Missy Armentrout McCollam of Elkins; Betty McMullen of Charleston; Patsy Pittman of Vienna; Sara Pritchard of Morgantown; and Mark Zanter of Huntington. Background information about each recipient can be found at the end of this news release.
The fellowships are intended to support working artists for the purpose of artistic development. Use of funds is up to the recipients’ discretion including, but not limited to, creating new work, purchasing supplies and materials, travel, research, and defraying expenses incurred in the presentation of work or documentation.
The West Virginia Commission on the Arts of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History directs state policy and allocations for arts programs in West Virginia.
For more information about the Artist Fellowship Grant Awards, contact Jeff Pierson, individual artist coordinator for the Division, at (304) 558-0240, ext. 717, or by e-mail at jeff.pierson@wvculture.org. Information and application forms for all available arts grants are posted on the Division’s website at www.wvculture.org.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Cultural Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Cultural Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
2007 Artist Fellowship Recipients
Arleta Cortes of Pipestem is a photographer whose work has been published in Wonderful West Virginia magazine and West Virginia Executive magazine. Her photographs have been exhibited at Tamarack, Frankenberger Art Gallery at the University of Charleston, Dandelion Gallery in Princeton and Studio B in Fayetteville. Cortes has a bachelor of fine arts degree from Temple University, Tyler School of Art.
Jessica Fox of Huntington is a dancer and choreographer. She has won the Governor’s Award in dance from the state of Maryland and the Yolanda Martin Award scholarship, among others. Fox has created choreography for the Goose Route Festival in Shepherdstown, Ohio University in Athens, Jeslyn Dance Gallery in Rockville, Md., and the American College Dance Festival which focuses on supporting and promoting the talent in college and university dance departments. She earned her bachelor of fine arts degree at Ohio University School of Dance.
Benita Keller of Shepherdstown is an adjunct professor of photography and gallery director at Shepherd University. She has won several awards including the Antietam Review Photography Award, Ernst Haas Award and an Individual Art Grant from the Maryland Arts Council, to name a few. Keller has worked as a photojournalist and her work has been exhibited in Shepherdstown, W.Va., Washington, D.C., New York, N.Y. and Havana, Cuba. She has a master of fine arts degree from the University of Maryland.
Missy Armentrout McCollam of Elkins is an actor, playwright and artistic director and founder of the Old Brick Playhouse in Elkins. She previously served as the director of theater at Alderson Broaddus College. McCollam has written plays for Snowshoe Mountain Resort and Davis and Elkins College. She has a bachelor of arts degree from James Madison University and a master of fine arts from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Betty McMullen of Charleston is a fiber artist who has won several awards including Best of Show in the fourth biannual juried exhibition of the West Virginia Art and Craft Guild. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum in the Community in Hurricane, Wheeling Artisan Center, Tamarack and the Parkersburg Art Center. McMullen has previously received a professional development grant from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts. She has a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi University and a master’s degree from Mississippi College.
Patsy Pittman of Vienna is a writer who has won numerous awards for poetry, fiction and nonfiction from West Virginia Writers, Writer’s Digest, Mid-West Writers and the Barbour County Workshop. Her work has been published in Wild Sweet Notes II, Woman’s World, Ideals, Grab-a-Nickel, Grit, Mountain Voices and FIRST for Women among others. She has been a member of West Virginia Writers since 1992 and is currently serving her third term as treasurer of the group. Pittman attended West Virginia University-Parkersburg and Marietta College. She also studied with nationally and internationally published writers June Berkley, Anne Chamberlain Brown and Kristen Johnson Ingram.
Sara Pritchard of Morgantown is a writer who won the 2002 Katharine Bakeless Nason Literary Publication Prize, sponsored by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her award-winning novel, Crackpots, was published in 2003 by Houghton Mifflin and went on to become a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Under the pseudonym Delta B. Horne, she has published stories and essays in Arts & Letters, Bellingham Review, Chattahoochee Review, Literal Latte, Mid-American Review and Northwest Review to name a few. Pritchard has a bachelor’s degree in English from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa. and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from West Virginia University.
Mark Zanter of Huntington is a synthesist and music programmer. He has scored a number of films and television projects with directors such as Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh and many more. He has composed music for such films as Black Hawk Down, Thin Red Line, Toys and Gladiator and the television show Chicago Hope. His projects have received numerous awards including Peabody and Emmmy awards and film festival awards around the world. Zanter is a recipient of the ASCAP film and television music award.
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